The left one, then?
-M
Jasmine stifled a laugh but didn't reply. She waited several minutes, then typed swiftly.
I'd better go to bed.
-Jasmine
The response came a minute later.
Wait! I need to know which you love more—peanuts or walnuts on your caramel apples. They're both crunchy, but very different flavors.
-M
Peanuts. Flake.
-Jasmine
Jasmine,
If you like, I'll come to your door right now and leave the Pink Toy of Delight in a bag there for you. That way, when you masturbate tonight you can have something inside you. I understand women enjoy that.
-M
Jasmine stared at his last email. How did he do this to her? She had to clasp her fingers together to stop herself from replying with something scathing.
Another message came a few minutes later.
No? Tell me if you change your mind. You will touch yourself tonight, though, won't you? Be careful with those claws.
-M
She couldn't help herself.
Matt,
Are you drunk?
-Jasmine
Jasmine,
Nice parry, am chastised.
Do you know what will happen when I masturbate tonight, though? I'm going to close my eyes so I can see you. We'll be on a mountain. Cold. Naked. The only warmth is your mouth on my cock. When I come, you'll swallow me and it will burn going down, heat you up, and your fingers will warm my balls, my thighs. There's not much better than that in the world.
Good night, Jas.
M
Matt was a diabolical person, she thought a few minutes later as she lay in her bed under several layers of blanketing. He was fully to blame; without his teases, she might have been able to send herself to sleep with mantras.
The last time she'd touched herself had been weeks ago, quick and perfunctory. This was nothing like that time. She could practically hear his voice, feel him hot and hard right there. Her fingers found her nipples almost feverishly.
The climax came way too soon. She only—just—managed not to say his name.
Afterward, her body had trouble stopping its shaking. For reasons that seemed pathetic, there were more tears.
Then Jasmine slept.
FOURTH FRIDAY— SARA AND HARRISON
"Jasmine, are you and Matt still on for tonight?" Sara asked on Friday. They'd met for pho after work at a Vietnamese restaurant in Wallingford, mere hours before the next Challenge time.
Sara saw Jasmine's hand holding the spoon go still.
"Yes," Jasmine answered coolly, swirling some basil leaves around in the soup. "I assume so."
"Good. Because I'm thinking I can arrange something with Harrison after all, even though he's out of town."
In all the weeks they'd been doing it, the two women had rarely talked with each other directly about the Challenge. What happened during Challenge time stayed within Challenge time. Although they usually met together beforehand, exactly what occurred during the designated hours of eight to midnight every Friday was kept between the participants. With one or two notable exceptions.
It wasn't all that different from normal, Sara admitted to herself. Her friendship with Jas lacked the usual sort of give-and-take Sara was accustomed to between females. Sara was a chatterbox. Jasmine kept things close. Their confidences tended to be one-way, with Sara spilling all and Jasmine sharing little of her day-to-day trials. Sara wasn't offended. She respected her roommate's need for privacy. She had plenty of buddies to confide in, but few as reliable and caring as Jasmine.
And she felt a little sorry for Jasmine. Despite her sleekness, she was more insecure than most people realized.
But they'd all been close-mouthed about the Challenge, as per their contract. And since it had been decided that all future Challenge weeks would pair up Sara with Harrison and Jasmine with Matt, there had been even less conversation about it. Partly that was because Harrison was on the East coast attending a funeral. But Sara suspected another part was the new dimension the whole thing had gradually taken on.
The original mission of the Challenge seemed to have gone by the wayside. It had become obvious to Sara that the Challenge was no longer about having scheduled, goal-oriented, and educational sex. If it ever had been.
In her case at least, it was about making stubborn, blind Harrison realize an actual girlfriend-boyfriend relationship with his friend Sara was not the end of the universe as he knew it.
And it was about giving Matt the chance to ditch his unemotional one-night-stand lifestyle for some order of commitment to Jasmine. Who was, unfortunately, so prickly around Matt that even Sara wasn't sure how she actually felt about him.
"Oh?" Jasmine said now.
"Yes. It occurred to me after Matt emailed all of us about the revisions to the Challenge agreement. From eight to midnight tonight, Harrison and I can text our sex!"
Soup splattered out of Jasmine's mouth. That was so unlike her elegant friend that Sara leaned across the table and knocked her on the shoulder. "Are you all right?"
"Do what?" Jasmine said.
"Isn't it called 'sexting?' I'm not positive it'll fly," she allowed. "I haven't exactly heard from Harrison the whole time he's been gone. I don't know when the funeral is or even if he's checking his phone and stuff. But I wanted you to know I'm going to try, so you don't feel abandoned when you're, um, going at it with Matt."
Sara had thought Jasmine would appreciate the gesture. Her roommate had been acting even more moody and abstracted than usual, often going into fogs where Sara had to wave her hand in front of her face several times to get her attention.
"Oh. I see. All right, thank you." Jasmine sounded polite, as though Sara had offered her another young coconut drink.
Sara wrinkled her nose. "I'm just not sure how it works. What should I do, do you think? Send him nude photos? No, I'm serious, Jas," when her roommate's mouth quivered.
Jasmine shrugged. "Probably. Most men are visual."
Sara frowned. "I'm not sure if Harrison is visual or not. I think so."
"Pictures should work, then. Or you could—" Jasmine stopped, and the color of her creamed-coffee complexion deepened.
"What? What? You have an idea. Tell me."
"I can't believe I'm suggesting this, but you could make a video."
Sara's mouth gaped open. "Send him a sexy video while he's in Savannah with his family? No. He'd kill me."
Jasmine shrugged. "It was just an idea."
"I could, though. I could record myself, uh…"
"Yes."
Sara stared at Jasmine's prim expression and burst into laughter. "This is why I love you, Jasmine. Is it even legal, though?"
Jasmine nibbled her lip. "You know what? I have no clue. I don't see why not, if both parties are willing and of age." She hesitated. "I know who would know."
"Who?" But she answered her question herself. "Oh, right. Matt."
Jasmine put down her utensil, brought out her purse, took out her phone, and stared at it a minute. Then, looking oddly determined, she tapped with the stylus.
A few minutes later, she looked up, her eyes and lips soft. Sara sussed her state right away. So that's what Jasmine looks like when she's hot for someone. Way to go, Matt!
"And the verdict is?" she prompted.
"He doesn't know of any law, but he advises against it. And if Matt doesn't advise something to do with sex, then it's probably an extra lousy idea."
"Yeah, he's pretty much been-there-done-that, hasn't he? Oh, well." Sara sighed. "I didn't know you were texting Matt. I thought you hated texting."
"I've…" Jasmine cleared her throat. "We've been doing some texting and…and emailing lately."
"Really?" Sara was intrigued.
"Nothing much," Jasmine said dismissively. "Just to pass the time."
"Oh." Curiouser and curiouser. Was this really casual, friendly emailing? Or…leakag
e? Sara thought it advisable not to ask for details.
Besides which, she was crestfallen by Matt's answer. "Well, shucks. If a sexy video isn't an option, then pics are probably out, too. Maybe I should just forget it."
"You could always call him."
"Phone? Like with our voices?"
Sara thought about that idea a short while later after she'd gone home, fed Pencil, given him a quick walk, grabbed her phone, and crawled into the bed under several layers of flannel and quilting with Pencil now dozing at the foot of the bed.
She stared at the phone, nibbled at the corner of her lip, and then quickly sent Harrison a text.
SARA: Are you checking your phone?
She waited one minute.
Two.
HARRISON: Sara?? What's wrong?
SARA: Hi there.
HARRISON: Why are you texting me?
SARA: It's 8:00 Friday.
Five minutes passed before the next response.
HARRISON: Sorry. Had to leave room. Whole family's here.
SARA: No problem.
HARRISON: What does it's 8:00 Friday mean?
SARA: It's time for the Challenge.
HARRISON: WTF are you talking about? I'm in Georgia. And it's 11:00 here.
SARA: And I'm in Seattle. And Jasmine and Matt are across the hall getting it on right about now. We should support them by, you know.
HARRISON: No, I don't know.
SARA: Sex.
HARRISON: The plan was to talk about it when I got back.
SARA: Yeah, well, I know that was the PLAN.
HARRISON: Wasn't the last thing enough for you?
SARA: What last thing?
HARRISON: When you sent me a slew of strident emails demanding that I agree to Matt's new terms.
SARA: What does strident mean, exactly?
HARRISON: Sara, I'm with my relatives. There are dozens of them. This is not a good time.
SARA: Can you leave? Do you have a room there?
HARRISON: I'm staying in a hotel. I'm at my cousin's place now.
SARA: How come they're all still there so late? Aren't these old people?
HARRISON: It's the old ones who keep talking.
HARRISON: And Uncle Scott fell in the parking lot after dinner. They're all trying to get him to go to the hospital. He won't budge.
SARA: What about finding a bathroom?
HARRISON: What am I supposed to do in this bathroom?
SARA: I'll call you and we'll have, you know. Phone sex.
HARRISON: Hold on. Going outside.
SARA: Harrison?
SARA: Waiting…
SARA: Are you there?
HARRISON: Sara. I am not spending 8 till midnight with you tonight.
SARA: It's just four hours. And we did agree to do this.
HARRISON: You know we were skipping tonight.
SARA: Well, yeah. But I realized we could actually do it with phones.
HARRISON: No.
SARA: Are you sure?
HARRISON: Yes. I mean I'm sure. My answer is no. No phone sex.
SARA: Bummer. I'm all hot thinking about your chest and arms doing that bulgy thing when you grab me.
SARA: Oh BTW I was gonna send you some pics, like of my tits or something. But Jasmine gave me a better idea.
SARA: She said I should send a video. Of, you know, me doing sexy stuff to myself. For you to watch and get off on or whatever.
SARA: But then Matt said bad idea because of maybe someday its getting out there as porn or being illegal or whatever.
SARA: So I thought better not.
HARRISON: Sara, shut up.
SARA: Are you still there? I thought you'd gone.
HARRISON: No not gone.
SARA: Well, go then. Hug your folks for me, okay? And that little niece of yours in the picture. She's a doll.
Sara waited long enough to be sure he hadn't responded again, then put down her phone and turned over onto her back. Last week the apartment had been too cold, then too hot, and now tonight it was cold again. She wished Harrison were here.
She should go get her purple silicone buddy, and she would, but snuggling under the covers held more appeal at the moment.
Her hand wandered down her body and found her swollen mound, burrowing. Darn, but she was wet. All day at work she'd been preoccupied thinking about tonight and how wrong it was that eight to midnight wouldn't happen. Of course, it had been like this all week, because she missed Harrison even more when she knew he wasn't just a few walls away. But when it had occurred to her that maybe they could still—
Her phone rang. She jerked so hard in surprise that Pencil barked and circled a few times before settling down again.
"Where is that thing?" She found it under the corner of her pillow. The number flashed on the display.
Harrison?
Holding the phone like a grenade, she put it to her ear. "Um, hello?"
"Sara." His voice sounded tinny, remote, and—as usual—exasperated.
"What's up? What happened?" she asked.
"What's up is it took me twenty minutes to get away and drive to the hotel. So here I am, all right?"
Her jaw fell. "You're at your hotel? But why?"
"You seriously need to ask me that."
"Well, yeah."
"You didn't deliberately give me a raging hard-on right there on the lawn of my cousin Altha's house."
"What?" Sara smothered a laugh. "Honestly? How?" She tried to think back. Had she said anything irresistibly seductive?
"You tell me. I have no idea. All I know is I was standing there with rain blowing in my face having a text conversation and suddenly you're telling me you've made a porn movie of yourself for my viewing. There's no way I could go back in. So now I'm out of that zoo in Ardsley Park and I'm in this room, alone. Satisfied?"
"I didn't make the movie. I just thought of it. Although…do you want me to make one right now? I could…."
"No. Your first instincts were right. Bad idea."
"My first instincts said to make the video, remember?"
"Sara, stop talking about the video."
"Why?" She grinned impishly. "Does it turn you on? Make you mmm, hard and manly…let's see, where would I put the phone cam…maybe down there…."
"Just forget it. You got what you wanted. I'm here. Yours for four fucking hours. I don't have a headset, either."
"Are you whining?" Sara giggled. She snuggled deeper under her covers, tucked the phone in comfortably against her ear with the pillow, and gave a happy little shiver.
"No. To be honest, I was glad to get out of there. Family can be overwhelming when you haven't seen them for a while. Hugging everyone all the time and bugging me about…."
"What?"
"Stuff. Just doing their family thing. So." He sounded less irritated, she was glad to note. His timbre was even kind of velvety. "What are you going to do now? How do two people have sex over the phone?"
"We could talk dirty," she began.
But Harrison got distracted again. "Does this thing do some kind of live video feed? Damn, I think it does, but I can't set it up right now."
Just the thought of receiving a video feed of Harrison in his hotel room made her pussy tingle. She wondered if he were wearing his usual chinos and conservative shirt or if he'd gone all out and packed jeans, which showed off those powerful, ripply swimmer's legs….
She sighed. "I thought you said video was a bad idea."
"Not so sure a feed is the same kind of deal. What? Have to read the fucking privacy policy? That's ominous. No, it's too complicated. God, I wish you were with me right now."
He grumbled on about security and digital recordings, his voice fading in and out, and Sara wondered if he were even aware of what he'd just said.
It certainly made her hot to know he was missing her at least a little bit. On purpose, she made a little purring noise and was gratified when his mutterings faded away. Now she had his attention.
S
he moaned, flamboyantly stretching with one arm and both legs, upsetting Pencil. "Oh, boy, here I am, lying here on my bed in the dark, totally, utterly, shamelessly…" she peered down at the high neckline of her flannel granny gown. "…uh, in the bed. Oh, how I wish you were here to warm me up so we could cuddle right under the blankets and I could get totally, utterly, completely naked and without a stitch on my naked body…uh…what else is sexy to say? Harrison? Can you think?"
It took him a few seconds to stop laughing. "You're doing fine. Go on."
That was kind of encouraging. So she forged ahead. "So if you're wondering what I'm wearing, I have on this super cozy nightgown that's soft on my skin and it molds to everything." That wasn't even remotely true, but she thought poetic license was okay. "And my feet are freezing and I wish you were here to pick them up and rub them between your hands and do that tongue thing you do to my toes. It makes my clit go all syrupy just thinking about that tongue thing. Um. Er." She floundered for more to talk about. "How many clothes are you wearing right now, Harrison?"
"All of them." He lapsed into a fit of coughing. "Damn cold. I'm still getting over what you had. Served me right for kissing you. I guess we might as well get naked now."
"It's too cold," she said, suddenly practical. "The furnace is still on the blink. Do I have to? I'll freeze to death."
"No. But you can tell me more about your sweet clitoris."
Leakage: A Friends-to-Lovers Romance Page 17